TUESDAY, A REVERSION TO PURE winter.
The June fog, two weeks early, blanketed the city and knocked the temperature down to the low fifties. With the wind chill, the “real feel” was 41.
Kate and Beth didn’t make it much beyond their first turn off Washington north onto Fillmore when a couple of biting gusts cut through them and they decided to turn around and give today’s walk a pass. Instead, Beth suggested that they take her car and drive down to the Ferry Building, where they could pick up some specialty groceries and then get a light lunch at the Market Café. Kate, who had after all just been to the same location four days ago—it was where she’d placed that stupidly spontaneous last call to Peter Ash—nevertheless didn’t want to have to explain her reluctance to go there again, so she agreed.
By 11:00, the women had finished their shopping and were sitting at a warmish inside booth at the Market Café, their coffees on the table in front of them. All of the other seats in the restaurant were taken as well. Though it wasn’t as crowded inside the main building as it had been on Friday afternoon, the place was still filled to near capacity with shoppers and tourists.
Peter waited until it was nearly lunchtime before he got up and told Theresa that he was going down to the Ferry Building for lunch and he’d be back in an hour. He’d come in early to catch up on the work that he’d been all but ignoring, but he had accomplished essentially nothing, whipping his frustration into a near frenzy.
Five minutes after he’d left his office, he arrived at his destination, entering by the northern doorway, and though it was cold and blustery, he stopped to get an ice-cream cone—salted caramel had become the world’s ubiquitous flavor in the past year or so, not long enough ago that he’d been able to develop a resistance to it. Savoring the taste, he strolled out to the deck area that looked out over the ferry landing gate and the bay.
The ice cream slowed him down and while he ate it, some of the edge seemed to come off the low-level panic with which he’d been living since he’d left the hotel and Kate.
He took a breath, let it out slowly. He could beat this thing, he thought. Just put it behind him. Chalk it up to boredom. Temptation was sometimes irresistible, and he’d given in to it once, then again. But that could stop. He could make it stop. It didn’t have to defeat him.
Last night at home had been proof of that. They’d all sat down to dinner together, him and Jill and the boys, and they’d talked about the Giants and school and the movie Interstellar and afterwards, when the kids had gone out, he had helped Jill with the dishes and then they sat next to each other on the loveseat for two episodes of Blue Bloods, to which they were addicted. He’d had a couple of glasses of wine, and nobody had said a word about alcoholism. They had made love, and he’d thought neither of Kate nor Diane until they were done. But then, almost immediately he’d fallen asleep. No stress, no drama. That could be his life again. He could reclaim it.
Finishing the ice cream, he threw his wrapper in a trash can and wandered outside down the back of the building until he came to Sur La Table, where he decided to stop in to see if he could find some kind of knickknack that Jill would like for the kitchen. After a couple of minutes, he walked out into the main pavilion with a small low-tech vacuum device that promised to keep opened wine fresh for weeks.
Crossing the hall and looking in at the Market Café for a free table, he saw Kate—unmistakably Kate—against the back wall and sitting sideways to him, talking animatedly to another woman. Thinking that this must be a cosmic existential test of some kind, he steeled himself and kept walking until he was outside again, at the far end of the building, then across the Embarcadero and on his way downtown.
Kate and Beth had already covered the drama with Kate’s kids and the archdiocese, and after a short lull, Beth drew in a breath and started in on another topic. “So there is one kind of weird thing happening with me,” she said. “Do you remember that girl I told you about on Friday? The one who got involved with Frank Rinaldi, which in turn got him shot by his wife? Her name is Laurie Shaw.”
“Sure. I remember. I think that’s maybe the first time you’ve ever really talked about actual details of your work with me. What about her?”
“Well, it’s not so much her, as she’s got a brother.”
“She was sleeping with her brother, too?”
Beth laughed out loud. “No. She was not sleeping with her brother. But she was so upset when I called her on Friday that I went by her place as much to see if she needed anything as to get her statement. I thought maybe she could use some help with coping. Or maybe I could recommend a professional. Anyway, somebody to help her get through this.”
“You are such a nice person.”
Beth shrugged. “I don’t know about that. In any event, there was no question of her being a suspect—the Rinaldis were a definite murder-suicide, and she was just this poor mixed-up woman who’d made a bad decision and now she believed—and she wasn’t all wrong—that she was responsible for her boyfriend’s death. Anyway, long story short, I went by to see her when I got off on Friday, and I’m there about fifteen minutes when her big brother, Alan, shows up. Did I say ‘big’?”
“I believe you did.”
“He is. Big as Denny was.”
“And?”
“And, we didn’t start out so great—he didn’t like that I was there to question Laurie about the murder. But by the end, I’d been there an hour and we were all just talking and getting along and he wound up asking me if I had a card. Which of course I did. Anyway, bottom line is he called me on Sunday and it looks like we’re going out tonight.”
“Tonight? Moving fast.”
“Well, I don’t know. We’ll see. But it was just so strange how the whole thing came about. He’s over there to take care of his sister, and I just happen to be there, too. And the next thing you know, no effort on my part, I’ve got my first romantic date in years. How does that happen?”
“Karma. A good sign, anyway. What’s he do?”
“Construction, I think. Something physical anyway. Salt-of-the-earth guy.”
“Very cool, Beth. That’s perfect for you, since you’re a pretty salt-of-the-earth person yourself.”
“Well, I’m trying not to load too much expectation onto it. I mean, it’s one night, and speaking of which . . .?”
“What?”
“ ‘What?’ she asks.” Beth lifted her cup and sipped. “I’m really, sincerely hoping you took my advice last week and did not pursue anything to do with your fantasy guy. What was his name again?”
“Peter.” Kate tried a dismissive smile, gone in a flash, then shook her head. “No.” She lifted her own cup, drank distractedly, replaced it carefully on its saucer. “Of course not.”
Beth hung her head, then looked back up. “My God, Katie. What are you thinking?”
“I said nothing happened.”
“Yes, you did. But you may remember that I’m a trained investigator and if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s knowing when someone isn’t telling me the truth.” Beth sat back in her chair, eyeing her friend in disappointment and even anger.
“No, I . . .” Kate began.
“Please, stop. Don’t even start.”
Kate played with her cup.
“This isn’t like when we were teenagers, Kate. Or young adults. Or whenever it was when we played around. What about Ron? What about your kids?”
“It wasn’t anything. There isn’t going to be any fallout around Ron or the kids. And okay, you were right. I mean, it was a mistake. I wish now I hadn’t done it. I really do.”
“And the guy? What about him? He just went along with it?”
Kate gave her a knowing look. “You just said it. He’s a guy, Beth. You know how guys are. What do you think?”
“He’s a married guy, and I think that’s depressing as hell.”
“Well, maybe it is if you think of it that way.”
“I don’t know any other way to think of it. It’s just when I’m marginally entertaining the idea of putting my foot in the relationship waters again, I hear about this and go ‘What am I thinking? Am I an idiot?’ ”
“You’re not an idiot. This was one guy. And he probably regrets it, too.”
“But not enough to have stopped him from doing it in the first place.” Beth found herself getting more and more worked up. To slow herself down, she took a long sip of her coffee, then with exaggerated control lowered it into its saucer.
“I—” she began.
But suddenly, from outside in the main hallway came the booming sound of an explosion, followed quickly by two others, and then a volley of pops, like strings of firecrackers.
Both women turned toward the restaurant’s entrance where now they heard another enormous explosion, then more of the popping sounds, accompanied by the completely unexpected, terrifying, and unmistakable noise of people screaming.
Then Beth was on her feet, reaching behind her back for her service weapon, which she realized too late that she never carried on their walks. Swearing, she turned, looked back at her table. “Get up! Get up!” she yelled at Kate. “Let’s go!”
But another explosion—a grenade blowing up outside the restaurant’s front door, close enough that they felt the impact—froze them where they stood. All around them now, people were out of their seats, pushing, yelling, rushing to the exit, to the outside seating and service area. The shots—for they could be nothing else—rang out in bursts inside the pavilion amidst the by-now continuous screaming and mayhem, as thick smoke wafted its way into the room.
Another volley of shots sounded just outside the restaurant’s door that led to the main indoor pavilion. The giant window by the check-in station shattered and people who hadn’t made it to the exit went down in front of it like sheaves of wheat.
A man in green camo, his head completely covered and his face concealed by a black mask, now appeared in the doorway. Much to her horror, Beth saw that he was holding an assault weapon, leveling it at chest height.
Kate and Beth stood next to each other, together, twenty feet in front of him. Beth turned, intending to tackle Kate and get them underneath the line of fire.